


The Sign of Three (alternative)

by 221b_hound



Series: The Pure and Simple Truth [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence - The Sign of Three, Episode: s03e02 The Sign of Three, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-20 20:24:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9512096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: Sherlock has returned, and he, John and Mary begin to negotiate how they work now. How they deal with their past. How they will approach their future.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the next instalment of my reworked season 3 and 4 of BBC Sherlock. The Sign of Three: a wedding, a friendship, a love story.
> 
> This series will work towards eventual Johnlock.  
> I am not tagging for everything in advance to avoid spoilers, but I will update the tags as they become relevant.  
> I am using elements present in the series, but in slightly (or greatly) different ways.

Sherlock scrabbled along the mantle, looking for just a scrap, a sniff, a skerrick of tobacco. Nothing under the skull. Nothing in the slipper. Nothing hidden up the chimney or under the transfixed mound of unopened mail: the stuff he hadn’t yet burned but couldn’t bring himself to read. (His parents; Henry Knight; the perfumed but otherwise virgin postcard from The Woman.) He worked the knife free and restabbed the correspondence just to vent some of his frustration; to force steadiness into the tremors of fatigue and too much caffeine.

“You really hate getting letters, don’t you?”

He glared at Mary Morstan. He should have heard her coming. Then he realised he had, but had dismissed her tread as not-a-threat.

“I need a cigarette.”

“You need about 48 hours of uninterrupted sleep and something more nutritious to eat than half a gingernut and a cup of tea.”

“Don’t be ludicrous.”

“If you say so. But I’m right, and we’re going to fix problem number two. John will be up in a minute. He’s getting the order from that Chinese place you both like. By the way, did you tell John I didn’t like his beard?”

“Me? Nooooo.” Sherlock’s eyes slid away from her frank blue gaze, despite himself.

“Liar. I liked his beard, you know. He looks good in a beard.”

“Does he?” Sherlock didn’t think so. Or perhaps objectively, John did, but it was a different thing, something that denoted change and Sherlock didn’t like it.

“The only thing I didn’t like about his beard was the reason he grew it,” Mary continued.

“And what reason was that?”

Mary’s look on him was even and unflinching.

“He’d found out you were alive and he couldn’t do anything to help. He felt trapped and useless. You left him here, waiting. It paralysed him.”

Her expression suddenly altered to a kinder mien. Sherlock wondered what she’d seen in the ruthlessly neutral face he’d put on, to make her stop justly berating him and to look at him like that. With compassion.

“He’s terrible when he feels like he can’t help,” Mary said gently. She leaned close, placed her hand over his. ( _His hand shook, Sherlock knew; couldn’t stop it. Fuck he needed a cigarette. Two. Six_.)

“Are you okay?” she asked. Concerned. “I’m sorry. Stupid question.”

“I’m fine. Splendid. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I know what your pretending to die did to John. What did it do to you?”

“Nothing. You forget. I planned it all.”

“Yes.” She was thoughtful. “Funny how plans don’t always work the way we think they’re going to. We never think we’re going to feel the way we do.”

Sherlock’s hand curled into a fist; his nails bit into his palm. The small, sharp pain of it was better than the words he couldn’t find.

She leaned even closer, the scent of her perfume rising around him, subtle. Like moonlight. Clair de lune.

“I actually like him better without the beard too,” she said, humour infusing the whisper.

“A little help here!”

Sherlock and Mary turned to see John nudging the door open with his hip, arms full of plastic bags laden with kung pao chicken, dumplings, char siu. As one, they folded their arms and grinned at him, while he cursed their lazy arses with half a smile and put it all on the half-cleared kitchen table.

“You’re both berks.”

“And yet you love us,” Mary declared.

Instead of denying it, he fetched plates so they could sit around the coffee table and eat.

*

**_London. Two months after the fall._ **

John had been walking.

He walked a lot. So much. So far. Every day. Looking for something. Not for someone, because there was no finding him. Dead is dead is dead. But looking. For something solid, or for change, or for a way to make everything make sense, or for a way to lose himself. Or find where he’d lost himself.

It was 2009 again. Without the cane. But lost-and-looking. Empty. Grieving.

Alone.

He’d been walking without seeing, and so John wasn’t prepared to discover where he was when the car horn startled him from… not a reverie. Reveries implied thinking and he walked without thinking either, blank. But the sound startled him conscious of his surroundings. For a merest portion of a second, after he’d stepped back onto the path, he’d wished he’d not stepped back.

St Bartholomew’s Hospital. The Smithfield markets behind him. The Wallace memorial.

The road. The path.

Blood all washed away, though he could still see it. Scarlet shadows.

Then he saw the other things. Chalk. Paint. Pieces of paper fluttering where they were lodged in the join of glass and wood in the red telephone box.

I believe in Sherlock Holmes

              _I believe in Sherlock Holmes_

**I**

**Believe**

**In**

**Sherlock**

**Holmes.**

Everywhere he bloody looked.

John’s left hand curled into a fist. Trembling.

His leg ached. He pressed the fist against his thigh.

_Don’t, don’t, don’t._

How could five words lift him up and tear him to pieces so easily?

“Excuse me? I’m so sorry to bother you. I’m a bit lost.” The breezy laugh: self-deprecating, a bit embarrassed, wry. The laugh made him look. Blonde hair, bright red coat. Blue eyes, bright, honest, open, taking in everything. Everything.

“I feel like such a twat,” she said, laughing again, “But I’ve only been back in London for a few weeks and I keep getting misplaced.”

John put on his charming face. He knew it was cracked all round the edges but she looked like sunshine, and it was easier to look at her brightness than the evidence of loss.

“Can I help… place you?”

“Would you? I’m trying to find Postman’s Park. It’s meant to be on Little Britain Street but I can’t see it anywhere.”

“Oh, well, Little Britain dog-legs at the corner of Montague there. Just…” he pointed. “Turn right down there, then left, and the park’s further down on the right, through a gate.”

“Lovely. Thank you. Well, I’ll be off then. Thanks again.”

Sunshine in a red coat strode away. John turned back to the memorial made by strangers.

“I’m sorry. Look, I know… hi!”

There she was again, a blend of brash confidence and awkward diffidence.

“Hi,” he said. Uncertain.

“It’s just… well. It’s this.” She held a folded letter out to him. “I got this, telling me to go to the park. And it’s making me … not nervous, exactly. But.”

John took and opened the letter. Printed in block letters, in pencil, on cheap paper. No watermark. No lines. Butcher’s paper. Shiny. The simple message on it read:

POSTMANS PARK. NEST BOX OPPOSITE THE PLAQUES. PARTING GIFT. LOLLY.

John turned the paper over. Examined it. Made to sniff it, but stopped himself in time.

The woman reached for the letter, diffidence winning over the brashness. “I’m sorry. God. I don’t know what I’m doing. You don’t know me and this is too weird. I’m … there’s a history to it, and I’m a bit nervous, and you have a nice face so I thought I’d ask and, I’m sorry, I’ll go now.”

John held onto the letter.

“Who wants to give you a lolly in a nesting box?”

“What? Oh. No. That’s. That’s what I called my father when I was little. He was always away, and when he came back he always brought me sweets. It turned into a joke that I’d always ask for one the minute he came in the door, so Lolly became his name. Once more, I’m so sorry. I’m babbling.”

“It’s all right.”

“I keep thinking what if he’s there, in the nesting box? Not in. Under. I mean. What if he’s there? I was twelve the last time I saw him. I’ve never heard from him except for the gift he sent me every birthday in my 20s, but otherwise nothing. What if he’s there and I don’t recognise him? Or what if I do? What if he’s…”

“In the nesting box?” John’s smile was lopsided, wry. Kind and warm.

She laughed. “Well, quite. I’m sorry. I’ll go and stop pestering you about my family mystery.”

“It’s all right,” said John again, finally releasing the letter into her fingers. “I used to like mysteries. I’ll come with you if you like.”

“Would you?”

“Of course.” They fell into step together, heading towards Little Britain Street, “My name’s John, by the way. John Watson.”

“Mary Morstan,” said the woman in the red coat. “Very pleased to meet you.”

The nesting box was too high up the tree to easily reach from the ground. John steadfastly did not look at Mary's expression ( _wry humour, not looking at the gap between his reach and the box, ruefully recognising that she, too, was too short to get to it_ ).

"Well," he said, "Unless your father's hidden a ladder usefully nearby..."

"I don't think he's that thoughtful, or he wouldn’t hide presents for me in a bloody nesting box."

"Right. So, if you're game, I'll give you a leg up?"

Which was how Mary Morstan ended up on John Watson's shoulders while he stood steady as a rock on the path. She lifted the top of the nesting box and reached cautiously in to withdraw a parcel. A white padded envelope; the word _Button_ written across it in red ink.

Getting off John's shoulders proved tricky. Mary slid part of the way off and only John's quick reflexes kept her from sprawling. He was momentarily aghast at how his arms ended up around her waist, and nearly with a handful of right breast, but she laughed, beginning with a snort, which made _her_ aghast, covering her mouth with her hand, her eyes wide in embarrassment. That made John grin encouragingly at her, so she showed him the retrieved package.

"He called me Button when I was little." She turned the parcel over. "You've been so helpful. Would you... like to see what he sent?"

They sat under the eaves hanging over the plaques (John tried not to look at the names of all the unsung heroes: at this, their song; _his, Sherlock's,_ name wasn't here) and Mary Morstan unwrapped the parting gift from her father.

Into her palm she shook out three red rubies from the envelope, and a square of white card inscribed with _Goodbye_.

John knew they were rubies. He’d seen them before. An old case. (The pain of memory, a twinge under his heart.)

Mary poked at the gems with her fingertip. She seemed unsurprised. Disappointed.

"I'd hoped he'd send a letter this time. To explain. About all the. All the other gifts."

She looked from the disappointing, priceless gems in her hand and at John.

"I thought he’d let me go. He used to send my something like this every year on my birthday. Pearls. A diamond, once. A sapphire. From 18 to 25. Every year. Then it stopped. For ten years. And that was fine, but now this and…" Her mouth firmed, and that’s how John realised suddenly her lip had been trembling. “I hoped he was coming back. But I'm never going to hear from him again, am I? My father. He’s finally left me.”

John didn’t know what to say, so he held her hand, and she let him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John asks Sherlock to be his best man, though the residue of pain clings to everything. There's a case. Sherlock says goodbye to a friend; and he remembers Minsk.

John paused by the door, hearing Greg Lestrade talking with Sherlock. In another life he'd have bowled right in. But he didn't live here anymore. 

"For God’s sake John, come in and tell Gary that we are not interested!"

John entered, and couldn’t have told you why the summons made him smile. "It seems we’re not interested. Gary.”

"Ha bloody ha," said Lestrade, "Don't you want to catch the notorious Waters gang and put a feather in your caps?"

“Oh, another feather. To go with the previous tarring, I presume.”

Lestrade flinched at that. Sherlock’s mouth went tight. John looked at the buffalo skull on the wall in its headphones.

Lestrade scratched the back of his head. “Yeah. Yeah, I deserved that.”

Sherlock wanted to be kind about it, but instead of words he only gave Lestrade a rueful look. John wanted to tell Greg that yes, he fucking did, but instead he said, “It was a rough time. But it’s over.”

“I’ll give it some thought,” said Sherlock. “I’ll text.”

“Right. Thanks. Right. Bye.”

The silence in the wake of his leaving was broken when Sherlock pushed a letter into John’s hands. “A case. Small one. A woman says her husband is three people. I suspect triplets taking advantage, but she’s the type that won’t believe without proof. I aim to collect it this afternoon. Will you come?”

John looked at the letter and laughed. “Didn’t you always say it’s never twins?”

“Triplets, John.”

“Ah, I see where I made my mistake.” But the eagerness was in the set of his shoulders. “Sure, I’ll come. Let me just text Mary.”

“Asking permission?”

“Telling the person I live with where I’m going to be. Some people consider it good manners.”

Sherlock bit inside his lower lip and looked at his shoes.

John shuffled his feet. “Sorry. Sorry, that wasn’t called for,” John said, shame colouring his tone.

“Some would say it was.” Guilt coloured Sherlock’s.

“No. No. I’m an arse, and we’ve talked about this, and I… I’m letting it go. See. Watch me. Letting it go.” John opened his arms, shook his hands. “But… about Mary.”

“I know. Sorry. Old habits. She’s… not like the others.” He said it as though just realising it was true.

“No.” John’s mouth lifted in a smile, thinking of her. “She’s not. She likes you, for a start.”

“I like her,” Sherlock reluctantly admitted.

“Good. Great. So. Let’s get down to what I really came here for.”

Sherlock peered at him. Frowned. Considered. “Best man advice. Well. Greg, I suppose.”

“No,” said John firmly. Fondly and tolerantly. “No, you idiot. The best man is supposed to be your best friend.”

“Stamford, then. Or that… Bill?… him. From the army.”

“No.” Still more fond. “You.”

“Pardon?”

“ _You._ ”

“I’m your best-“

“Man.”

“-friend?”

John’s whole demeanour softened. “Yes. Of course you are. Of course you’re my best friend.”

“Oh.”

“So.”

“So?”

“Will you?”

“Will I…? Oh. Oh yes.” Sherlock cleared his throat. Looked at his feet. Looked up at John. “If you’re sure.”

John opened his mouth to ask why he wouldn’t be sure, and thought better of it. He said, “Yes. I’m sure. I want the two people I love most in this world to be there. My best friend and the woman I’m going to marry.”

“Then. Yes.”

John beamed at him. “Great.”

Their first cast together, post-Moran, really was short and very nearly dull, until Sherlock brought the wife into Wellcome library where he’d corralled the triplets, and he realised that two other women – two other wives – had been duped and used in the same way. Then an ambulance and the Met had to be called, after their client tipped one of her abusers over a balcony and laid into another with a heavy hardback book on the history of bacteria. While John tended to the one with the broken leg, Sherlock seemed content to ‘accidentally’ lose grip on the woman from time to time so she could kick the other two men.

Sherlock returned to Baker Street alone, and the buzz soon wore off.  He sat sideways in his chair, knees drawn up to his chin, and stared moodily at the bullet-and-yellow-paint smiley on the wall.

He almost didn’t answer the phone when it rang, but he was tired of his own head by then.

“How does your fair day travel?”

Sherlock sat up, his shoulders loosened, at the familiar electronic tone. “Isn’t there a quote about so foul and fair a day?”

“Macbeth feeling the pinch of victory in battle versus what it cost him. Have you got something on your mind?”

“No. Yes. John’s still angry. He thinks he’s forgiven me, but he hasn’t.”

“It might take a while. He’ll get there.”

“Possibly.”

“You know it’s possible to be angry with someone and still love them, right?”

“He’s asked me to be his best man.”

“Nice. See. He still loves you.”

“ _Love_ seems a strong term.” Though in Sherlock’s head John’s voice whispered: _The two people I love most in this world._

“Anyone would think you didn’t know the first thing about life. For a genius, you’re a massive pillock. There’s not just _love_ and _in love_ , you know. Humans have a lot of different ways of feeling love. Then idiots try to stuff all those ways into boxes. I mean, would you say Adler was in love with you?”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“But she came to get you out of that mess in Bangkok when asked.”

“She owed me. We’re even now. That’s all.”

“Sure it is.”

“How did you know she was alive?”

“I’m bloody good at my job and I know your dossier backwards.”

“Her survival is not in my dossier.”

“Not in words, no. In some of the spaces between, she is.”

“You are clever.”

“I am, and you’re changing the subject. You and Adler more than like each other, whatever that means. Does it really matter? It’s just labels. She’s gay, you’re gay, that doesn’t mean you don’t have something, even if it isn’t sex.”

“Does Mycroft send you on specialist courses in relationship counselling, or is this a hobby?”

“It’s a hobby. You three are fascinating. If I was allowed to write a thesis on you, my psych career would be assured.”

Something in the tone scratched at the back of Sherlock’s brain. “You know about Eurus.”

“Of course I do. I had to know all your trigger points to get you past them. Anything less than full disclosure left you vulnerable. He knew that. It’s why he told me. And you’re changing the subject again. This Watson business. He loves this woman and he’s marrying her. And he loves you too. We had eyes on him, remember. He loves you, or he wouldn’t have ended up the mess he was. And he’s angry because he was such a mess. Not because Mycroft didn’t tell him afterwards, but because you didn’t tell him before. Give him time, and show him he can trust you.”

“Yes, thank you Jiminy Cricket.”

“Ha. You don’t remember Macbeth, but Pinocchio’s sidekick comes rolling off the tongue.”

“Piss off.”

“Actually, that’s why I’m calling. The pissing off will happen soon. I wanted to retire, but the boss says I have to do one more mission to make up for telling Watson about you before he gives me the boot. Getting Moran wasn’t enough of a finale, apparently.”

Sherlock ignored the first statement. He was reluctant to acknowledge it, so he didn’t. “Speaking of whom. Moran said John and I were being watched by someone other than him. You, I presume?

“Sometimes, or one of the team, just the usual follow up to make sure we didn’t miss anything. And let’s face it sunshine, you need watching.”

“Not any more.” 

“I guess not. Are you sacking me, too?” 

“Yes. In advance of you pissing off.”

“Pity. I'll miss our chats. They've been fun.”

“Have they?”

“With the occasional bout of the utterly horrific. But we got you home.”

“ _You_ did.”

“Yes. I did.”

“Thank you.”

A short silence, followed by, “Did that actually hurt?”

“A little.”

They both laughed. 

“You’re welcome, Sherlock. Go and have a good life. Try not to be a pillock.”

Then the voice was gone.

Sherlock wondered that his contact had taken the time to call to say goodbye. But then, they had, as stated, been through occasional bouts of the utterly horrific together.

*

**_An abandoned building in Minsk.Six months after the fall.  
_ **

“Sherlock. Sherlock! Answer me! Is the link up? Are you there? _Sherlock_?”

“I… I…”

“Thank god, we thought he got you.”

“He did.”

“Jesus. Right. Sit-rep.”

“I have the intel. He’s dead. I’m… not. Quite. I’m… I…”

“The extraction team is on its way. What are your injuries?”

“I…”

“Sherlock, focus. Focus. Where are you hurt?”

“Stab to the triceps. Upp-p-per thigh. My left side. Bleeding. A lot.”

What’s the blood flow. Spurting or seeping?”

“S-seeping.”

“Fantastic. That’s actually fantastic. No arteries have been harmed in the making of this bloodbath.”

Wheeze of laugher that breaks down to a sharp cry and then a series of cries, _iih iih iih_ , like a small wounded creature.

“Shit. Okay. Okay, what can you see around you? Something to use to stanch the bleeding. Anything?”

The sound of tools and wood and pieces of metal falling and then, “G-gaffa tape.”

“Perfect. That’s bloody perfect. Do you the wound in your side first. Tape it up. The team’s ETA is fifteen minutes. You have to hold on fifteen minutes, that’s all.”

The sound of tape tearing. A grunt. A high hiss of pain, and a guttural cry. A slick sound – hands slippery with blood.

“Sherlock.”

“D-d-d-done.”

“Now your thigh. Taped up?”

“I’m cold.”

“That’s reaction setting in. Ten minutes. Hang on.”

“Hurts.”

“Of course it hurts, sunshine. Means you’re still alive. Excellent news, that.”

Huffing high breath. _Iih iih iih._

“ _John_...”

“He’s okay.”

“T-tell John…”

“No. You tell John.”

“S-s-sorr-“

“You listen to me. I’m going to make sure John knows you’re alive. Damn your brother and what he thinks is best. I’m going to tell Watson my damned self that you’re alive and coming home. He’ll expect you home.”

“T-t-tell h-h-“

“It’s easy to let yourself die if Watson thinks you’re dead already. But if he is expecting you back, you won't let him down. You will not die while John Watson is expecting you home.”

“P-please... n-n-no…”

“Screw you. I’m going to tell him, so you’d better make the damned effort to live. John’s counting on you.”

Heavy breathing. Growing stronger.

“That’s it, sunshine. I’ve got that old message you made. Our boss told me to wipe it, but you know me. Always saving things for a rainy day. I’m going to send that to John right now. So you better hang on. I hear Watson's a bit of a firecracker if he thinks someone's spinning him a line. Especially where you're concerned. So you’d better come home. Don’t break his heart again.”

“ _John_ …”

“That’s right. It’s all for John. At least, 50% for John, yeah? Only half for the thrill of the chase.”

“S-s-sixty percent for John.”

“At least.”

“S-s-seventy. At leas’.”

The slurring was alarming.

“Hold on Sherlock. That’s the extraction team you hear coming, a doctor’s with them. They’ll be right with you. And I’m calling John. You hear that? That’s the message you recorded last month when you were holed up in that warehouse in Warsaw. I’m sending it to him now. He’ll be waiting for you. Don’t you die on him now that he knows you’re coming home.”

“I… w-won’t.”

Then the sounds of the team arriving, busy sounds of emergency first aid and clearing the scene and getting Sherlock out of there, intel and life intact.

An hour later, Sherlock’s MI6 lifeline made a call to John Watson as he was leaving the King George pub.

_“Doctor Watson. I have a message for you from beyond the grave.”_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Bloody Guardsman. Dancing lessons. One of John's secrets, revealed.

After the case of the Bloody Guardsman, John and Sherlock returned to Baker Street: John to shower, to sluice Bainbridge’s blood from his hands, from where it had soaked through his jeans to smear his skin. Sherlock scoured his own hands in the sink, changed and took John’s blood-crusted jeans to the washing machine downstairs. Mary arrived with a change of clothes for John as Sherlock was starting up to the flat again.

“Is he all right?”

“Fine,” Sherlock reported. “He’s always fine after the gory ones. He’s at his best in a crisis.”

Then he remembered that Mary was a civilian and had, after Moran, declared one adventure per quarter day was enough. She’d noted that Moran counted for Christmas, so she wasn’t due another heart-stopper till Lady Day in March at the earliest.

Mary didn’t look alarmed or distressed. She was, in fact, looking at him, wryly expectant.

“Are you waiting for me to complain?” she asked.

“It’s the usual pattern with his girlfriends.”

“Ah, but I’m his fiancée, so I have different standards. And… you’ve read his blog, right?”

“I generally avoid John’s blog. His penchant for exclamation marks makes my tongue hurt.”

“From biting it or blowing raspberries?”

“It’s charming that you think I’d bother to bite my tongue for John.”

“But you do. I’ve seen you at it, once, maybe twice, I’m pretty sure. The point is… that post after the train bomb business. You know how he ended it.”

“I’ve just told you I don’t read his blog.”

“Yeah, but you were lying. I’ll remind you. He wrote ‘#sherlocklives means #johnwatsonlives’.”

Sherlock stepped ahead of her to push open the door, and so Mary couldn’t see his face. His face was unruly these days, showing things it wasn’t meant to, and Mary was worryingly adept at reading him.

He almost felt the way she smiled at his back. “I’m not a kid in love for the first time, Sherlock. I know that one person can’t be the be all and end all for another. Not usually. John and I love each other, but I know what he is to you. And if I didn’t, that line would tell me. I met him when he thought you were gone forever, and we’ve built something really, really good. But…. Well. Sherlock lives means John Watson lives. I’m not going to take that away from him, or from you, come to that.”

Sherlock turned to face her then. Not quite believing what he heard, yet the evidence of his eyes – her expression, her body language, her every action since his return – supported her claims. Mary Morstan wasn’t jealous. Mary Morstan, despite the wisp of ‘liar’ in the air around her, truly loved John. More, and strangely, she seemed to radiate fondness at him too.

“The three of us, we could be good friends,” she said, as though reading his mind. “I like you. I really, really do. And you don’t hate me, right?”

“No,” Sherlock said with a wry smile, “I don’t hate you.”

“That doesn’t sound exactly like a ringing endorsement,” said John, joining them at last. Steam curled across the ceiling at the open bathroom door as he emerged, a towel around his hips.

 _Still too thin,_ Sherlock concluded in a swift, truncated glance, although John had clearly been taking better care of himself recently. Encouraged by Mary, no doubt. The old scars, front and back of his shoulder, had faded a little more in the last year. A distinctive bruise above his left clavicle indicated recent, vigorous sex; some biting. _Oh. Well. Obviously._

John, somehow aware of Sherlock’s fleeting scrutiny, grabbed the bag of clothes Mary had brought and disappeared to Sherlock’s bedroom to change.

“So,” said Mary, disrupting the odd tension, “Did you solve it?”

“No,” grumbled Sherlock, but then he brightened. “But John saved a life today.”

Mary beamed proudly, and Sherlock couldn’t help an answering grin.

*

Later, while John picked out his blog post on the case, Sherlock decided to peer over Mary’s shoulder as an alternative to snatching the laptop out of John’s hands and throwing it through the window.

Mary grinned up at him from the large notebook she was filling in.

“I tried sending him to typing classes,” she whispered, “I think he failed on purpose.”

“Stubborn,” Sherlock agreed, and they shared a conspiratorial smile. Then he frowned at her roughly drawn table. “You should have a spreadsheet. A project board at least.”

“John’s got the computer and the project board’s at home,” she said, “I’m just finalisinig the guest list, and thinking about seating arrangements. Do you think I should seat Harry with Greg and Molly, or put her with John’s cousins?”

“This one here,” Sherlock pointed to a cousin's name, “Hates you.”

“Really?”

“You opened the mail here the other day. Her card came second class post. Cheap card. Smelled of exhaust fumes and oil, indicating it was bought at a petrol station. The stamp was uneven and creased. She’d clearly taken three attempts at licking. Unconsciously retaining saliva.”

“Great. Let’s stick her by the bogs. Now Harry…”

“She won’t come,” said John, peck-peck-pecking away at the blog post.

“But she sent an RSVP,” Mary protested.

“Yeah. She does that. She’ll mean to come. She won’t.”

“Do you want her to come?”

“Of course.” John still didn’t look up. “She’s my sister. Only family left.” He paused, looked up at last, with a small smile for the two of them. “Well, genetic family. But she’s been avoiding me for nearly thirty odd years now. It’s not going to change just because I’m getting married.” He looked away again. “She doesn’t come to occasions where I’m supposed to be happy. Or when I’m miserable, come to that. She sent flowers to the hospital after I was shot. She didn’t come herself.”

Mary and Sherlock exchanged a glance. Silence filled the space, until John spoke again.

“Don’t tell me Mycroft hasn’t told you about it, Sherlock.”

“He hasn’t,” Sherlock assured him. “He tends to hold onto nuggets of information he thinks he can deploy later.”

“ _Deploy_. Sounds about right.”

“John, is there something I should know?” Mary asked, “Beyond the fact she has a drinking problem?”

John grimaced. He clicked a command to post the blog and closed the lid of the laptop. For a few more moments he was silent, lips pressed in a grim line.

He didn’t find this kind of thing easy.

“I suppose Mycroft would only know the official reports anyway. Right. So. Harry and I were at home alone. Dad had taken mum to the hospital again. Second time that month. Third since Christmas. It was freezing cold. The boiler was on the blink as usual. I was nine. Harry was almost thirteen.  She told the cops she’d been trying to make a fire in the grate when the kindling fell out and set the armchair on fire.”

“She lied,” observed Sherlock into the pause.

“Yes,” said John, “She lied. She’d finished cleaning up the blood in the kitchen while I cried on the stairs.  Then she picked up his precious fucking Longoni pool cue he’d used to hit Mum, smashed it to bits with the poker and set fire to it in the middle of his favourite chair next to the grate.” A lopsided, bitter lift at the corner of his mouth. “You can imagine how that ended.”

“Oh, John. Oh my god.” Mary had risen in her concern, reached for him. He took her hand.

“She was watching the fire spread from the armchair to the curtains when I grabbed her hand and dragged her outside,” John said. “We watched that bastard’s house burn to ashes. We lost everything, of course.”

“John.”

Mary’s anguished tone drew reassurance from John: a kiss to the hand which clutched his. “It’s okay. We weren’t hurt. And he was more careful after that, for a little while anyway, until the insurance money came though. A couple more beatings, and then he buggered off.  The years after that were pretty tight financially, still hard. Happier, I guess. Only Harry was never the same. I used to think she blamed me for sitting there crying about it. Then I thought she believed I blamed her. When she met Clara I really thought she was doing better, but that didn’t work out either. I don’t really know what she thinks these days.”

His story told, John pulled Mary closer to kiss her brow and, holding her hand, he nodded across the room to Sherlock. “I’ve never told anyone what she did. What _we_ did.”

Sherlock tucked the confidence away to examine later, to determine what new understanding this gave him of John. What he said was, “If she does come, then, better not sit her next to the hostile cousin. Or Lestrade. Put her next to Mike Stamford. He gets on with everybody, and if she doesn’t come, he won’t draw attention to the fact.”

John nodded. “Anyone who can put up with both you and me can definitely withstand Harry in a mood. If she comes. Though she won’t.”

Mary bent to kiss her fiancé. “We’ll send her a piece of cake then, yeah?”

“Yeah,” John said, “She might like that.”

*

They fell into an easy pattern, the three of them. When not at work, they’d gather at Baker Street. Sometimes there were cases. Sometimes there was the wedding planning, which Sherlock was surprisingly good at (and more surprisingly to himself, he liked. It was entertaining to lie to Mary and watch her astutely catching him at it every single time.)

Sometimes John just had to escape from all the decisions and opinions he was faking just to look like he was interested in the colour of the flowers or the shape of the serviettes. Sometimes Mary really needed Sherlock to take John out on a case so she didn’t have to watch him faking opinions about dresses and flowers and cakes.

Mary made herself scarce sometimes, taking tea with Mrs Hudson (who had very nearly forgiven her for apparently proving that John was not gay after all) and listening to lurid tales of being a drug dealer’s wife in Florida in the late 20th and early 21st century.

Upstairs, Sherlock took it on himself to teach John how to dance.

John led, his hand on Sherlock’s waist, Sherlock’s on his shoulder, their other hands clasped.

“Stop looking at your feet. Look at me.”

“I’ll step on your toes if I look at you.”

“Then you’d better learn not to step on my feet, or I’ll kick you in the shins.”

“Had a lot of success with the Sherlock Holmes Dance School Method, have you?”

“You’re my first pupil.”

“Sorry about my two left feet, then.”

“You can shoot straight with a pistol over a remarkable distance. You can shimmy down a ladder at breakneck speeds while keeping a Faberge egg intact in one hand. You can restart a heart, stop abdominal bleeding and hit the high notes when you’re singing along with Lady Gaga. _You can learn how to dance_.”

“How do you know about the high notes?”

“Coming home, I used to wait on the stairs if you were singing. It was hilarious.”

“Pillock.” John was laughing.

“Yes, but you’ve stopped looking at your feet and you haven’t stepped on me once. Now, remember how I showed you how to diiiiiiii-!”

John dipped Sherlock and grinned at him, holding on tight.

“If you drop me,” said Sherlock sternly, “I’ll tell Mary about Lady Gaga.”

“Mary knows about Lady Gaga,” John laughed, swinging Sherlock back onto his feet.

“She knows all your secrets.”

“Not all of them,” said John, but then he looked away, because Sherlock didn’t know them all either.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock makes a list of traits he just might love, but he is himself still. Mary catches him in a lie, but he is himself still. And he asks Greg Lestrade for help in the hardest thing he's ever done.

In the middle of another sleepless night, Sherlock sat and made a list of everything he knew about the voice he missed.

_Yorkshire born. Kensington voice coach._

Then he added a question mark, because that last talk had sounded different.

 _English_ , he tried again. _Likes animals. Age: 30s._

Another question mark.

He began another column.

_Quick witted. Clever. Funny. Stubborn. Loyal. Fearless._

Well, that could have been John, except for the quick-witted part. Though that wasn’t entirely fair. John was decisive in a crisis. Before the crisis it took him a little while to catch up, but when he got there, nothing held him back.

Sherlock didn’t even know if the altered voice belonged to a man or a woman. The electronic rendering had put it in a lower register, but certain phrases were ambiguous. The laughter had always seemed warm, even through the filter. The affection had transcended the medium too. Or had he imagined that? Had he infused that voice with care, because it had been the voice that kept him safe, kept him going, saved him so that he could save John and Greg and Mrs Hudson? And himself.

That voice had carried the weight of protecting everything he loved, and he had trusted it with his life and theirs, and it had never let him down.

Underneath the columns he wrote _I miss you._

He crossed it out. Once, twice, again, again, again, until it was nothing but a black scribble.

_That is not me. I am Sherlock Holmes. Not my area. I am myself, still._

He wrote that across the page.

**I am myself still.**

He tore the page from the notebook, wadded it up and burned it in the fireplace.

*

Mary came to the flat on her own eight days before the wedding. John was working at the clinic. She was bored at home. A bit lonely.   Some time with Sherlock would be entertaining, she thought. Especially if he was in the mood for the can-you-tell-I’m-lying game.

Her anticipation was quashed as she mounted the stairs to the flat and heard Mrs Hudson’s voice, loud and clear.

“It changes people, marriage.”

“Mmm, no it doesn’t.” Sherlock. Annoyed. _Bothered._

“Well, you wouldn’t understand ’cause you always live alone. Marriage changes you as a person, in ways that you can’t imagine.”

“Your husband was executed for double murder. You’re hardly the spokesperson for marital relations.”

“Oh, but that wasn’t really about _us_. But I was telling you. My best friend, Margaret – she was my chief bridesmaid. We were going to be best friends forever, we always said that; but I hardly saw her after the wedding. She cried the whole day, saying, ‘Ooh, it’s the end of an era.’”

“Don’t you have things to do?” Sherlock was far beyond annoyed now. A brittleness in his tone made Mary purse her lips, scowling through the door at the landlady beyond it.  
  
“She was right, really. I remember she left early. I mean, who leaves a wedding early?”

Teeth gritted, Mary pushed the door open. “Sherlock! I need you to… oh, hello Mrs Hudson. You’re looking well today.”

“Well, actually, my hip…”

“I need to kidnap Sherlock for a minute. John’s having kittens about the morning suits and is threatening to switch to a kilt…”

“Ooh, John would look wonderful in a kilt. Nice legs.”

“I would usually agree, but the maid of honour and best man outfits are all set and we’ve only got a week, and you don’t want to wear a matching kilt do you, Sherlock?”

“Oh good god, no.” Sherlock was chivvying Mrs Hudson out the door. Mrs Hudson tutted and dithered and left at last. Sherlock closed the door and leaned against it, looking like he’d just returned from the war.

“You know not to listen to her about that, don’t you?” prompted Mary.

“I try not to listen to Mrs Hudson on general principles.”

“You should listen to her Florida stories, though. Very instructive.”

“I’m sure.”

“Sherlock, she loves you and John. Me, not as much. Though she might be coming around. I like her. But. But she’s not a prophet or anything.”

Sherlock scoffed that notion with his whole face.

Mary persisted. “John said that when she first met him, she said she could tell he was the sitting down type. _John_.”

Sherlock finally met her eye.

“She has many fine qualities, your Mrs Hudson, but she doesn’t know everything.”

The set of Sherlock’s shoulders changed suddenly. The lines around his eyes and mouth relaxed. “No. She certainly doesn’t. Most of what she knows could fit on the head of a pin and still leave room for line-dancing angels.”

He quit barricading the door and strode into the kitchen. “Tea?”

“Please.”

“John isn’t threatening to wear a kilt.”

“No. Although…” She cocked her head, considering.

“Don’t you dare.”

Her peal of laughter made him smile. “Of course not. A week to go? Though at this point even I’d consider running away and getting hitched in Vegas.”

“Mrs Hudson will never forgive you if you do.”

“I’m not sure John would either.”

“Hmm.” His expression was… odd.

He laid the tea things out on the coffee table and Mary watched him turning the pot, adjusting cups on saucers, not looking at her, with a sudden punch of dread.

“Sherlock.”

“Hmm?”

“You’re not…?”

“Not what?”

“Did I get it wrong?” whooshed out of her.

He straightened and took in her suddenly flushed cheeks, wide and worried eyes, hands curled against her diaphragm.

“Get what wrong?”

“About… about you. And John. I. I. I… Are you in lo-?”

Realisation caught up with him as she began to speak. “No. Mary, stop. No.”

She bit her lip, but was not reassured.

“I’ve had this discussion before, you know,” said Sherlock, in the kindest voice she’d ever heard from him. “About… love and being in love. The differences. The … broader definition of love. And.” He took a breath. “I once thought love was just a chemical defect. I may have reconsidered to an extent. But romance is, as I have said before, _not_ my area. I admit that I... love John. And. And. I love you. But I am not _in_ love.”

Mary nodded. She put on a smile, and seemed to relax. But Sherlock saw the conclusion in her eyes. The way she always seemed to know.

_Liar._

He steadfastly ignored that look. He placed a hand on her wrist and kissed her cheek.

“The two people I love best in this world,” he said gently, “You should get married. You’re good together. You’re good for him. I think he’s good for you.”

“He is. Oh, he is.” But there was a question in her tone.

“And you’re both good for me.”

“Well, all right then.”

She was working very hard to sound unaffected. He loved her for that. For trying. For not challenging it. _I am myself, still._

“You’re good for us too,” she said. “For John. For me. I love you too.  I know you know that.”

“I know.”

They spoke of corsages over tea, and pretended the conversation wasn’t stilted.

*

Five days before the wedding, John and Mary came by Baker Street, for last minute ‘wedmin’ as Molly had recently called it, according to John.  As they arrived, two people were leaving, turning left into the street as John and Mary approached.

“See how much work he’s put into the wedding planning?” the tall, lean, silver-haired man was telling the woman at his side. “All those serviettes! And the name cards! He still remembers the copperplate he did when he was labelling his specimen collection.”

“He probably still feels like he’s labelling specimens,” said the grey-haired woman, but with an indulgent smile, full of warmth.

“It would have been lovely, to see him doing that for Eurus one day.” The man’s voice was more wistful now. Sad.

The woman patted his arm. “It’s lovely to see him doing it for his friends, though, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he agreed. He lifted her hand to kiss the knuckles and they walked out of hearing.

Sherlock saw the two of them bursting with the news as they arrived.

“Yes, yes. I have parents. They visit. And lo, they have a single head each. Mycroft’s taking them to Les Mis today. Penance for his sins.”

“I’ve never met them,” said John, “They didn’t come to the funeral.”

“Mycroft told them it… wasn’t necessary.”

“You mean ‘Prissy Bastard’?” She grinned at him.

“He’s ‘Interfering Cow’ at the moment,” Sherlock told her.

John joined Sherlock in the kitchen to fetch cups while Mary took the dust cover off the project board that now resided in 221B.

“I didn’t mean anything, by the way,” John said. “About the funeral. I mean…”

“I know what you mean.”

“No. Sherlock. Really.” John pressed his hand to Sherlock’s shoulder. “I know I’ve been a prick sometimes. But…”

Sherlock relaxed under John’s touch. Sherlock knew. Somewhere around the fourth dancing lesson, he’d realised. John had finally and truly forgiven him.

“I know,” he replied, more softly. “Though I really am still very sorry about what happened.”

John’s face did complicated things. Feelings slipping past one after another, so many, so varied. Sherlock couldn’t always keep up. Finally, John patted Sherlock’s shoulder, squeezed it, let go.

“Good.”

“Fine.”

“Yes. And. I wanted to ask. Did something happen the other day when Mary came to visit? She’s been a bit quiet.”

“Wedding nerves,” said Sherlock blithely.

John was dubious, but he let it pass.

Two hours later, just as John and Mary were getting ready to leave, Sherlock’s phone rang. He put it on speaker for everyone’s entertainment.

“Sherlock. Please.” Mycroft’s voice, strained and pleading. In the background was the hubbub of voices at the theatre bar. “Take over. Come to the theatre at once and take over. I can’t bear another minute of this. It’s awful. So awful. Unspeakably awful.”

“So sorry,” said Mary cheerfully, shocking Mycroft to silence with her unexpected presence, “Sherlock’s needed for emergency wedmin.”

“We’ve decided to go with kilts after all,” Sherlock announced. John was momentarily alarmed, then caught on.

“Have to dash to Edinburgh for some Watson tartan,” he said, so jovially that they could hear how much it hurt Mycroft in the pained silence that greeted it.

“You’re inhuman,” Mycroft growled at last.

“That’s the bell to take your seats,” crowed Sherlock. “Have fun!”

“You ba-.”

Sherlock hung up, grinning while Mary and John giggled.

*

The arrest of the Waters gang – caught in the act at last! – should have been a glowing triumph for Greg Lestrade. Instead of basking in the glory, however, he watched the gang members led away by Donovan while he made an urgent call to Mrs Hudson.

“Sherlock’s texted that he needs help. I’m on my way. What’s the situation there?” he asked as he fastened his seatbelt and began to drive. He deliberated using the siren.

“Oh, him,” Mrs Hudson scoffed, “He’s all in a lather about his Best Man speech. Anyone would think Sherlock didn’t spend most of his time talking the leg off an iron stove. Though.” Here, Mrs Hudson snorted an inelegant laugh, “I don’t think anyone’s told him about the telegrams yet.”

Greg nearly drove into a post box as the implications hit him. He hung up with Mrs Hudson’s cackle of hilarity ringing in his ears.

Still, Sherlock had never texted Greg for non-crime help before. He arrived at Baker Street bearing gifts and looked at the devastation Sherlock had wrought on the living room with an avuncular eye. Screws of paper all over the place like a paper-based hailstorm; a tea stain on the wall and the remnants of a pitched tea cup by the skirting board; four books upended on the kitchen floor; two pencils bitten in half beside the notebook that was more scribbled-out text than text; and Sherlock’s hair looking like two chickens had been fighting in it. The man himself sat with his fingers tugging on his curls as he scowled at the keyboard.

“You took your time,” Sherlock snapped.

Greg made a production out of fetching his phone and reading back the message.

**Greg. Urgent help. Baker Street. Hurry. SH**

“You used my actual name. I was alarmed. Nearly called the chopper squad in. But reason prevailed and I called Mrs H to find out if I actually needed a tactical unit,” Greg said, failing to keep the laughter from his tone, “So you’ve got coffee and a Danish from downstairs to brandish at your emergency.”

“You’re not funny. You're never funny. I don't know why you try."

"Endless optimism, I suppose. So what's wrong?"

"I don’t know what to write for this speech. The wedding’s in four days.”

“You’re supposed to be a genius.”

“Murders are easy. This. This is hard. The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

Considering this included faking his own death, Greg wondered at the level of stress he was hearing. He stopped teasing and put the coffee and pastries on the table.

“You must have some idea. He’s your best mate, isn’t he?”

“Apparently.”

“Well isn’t he? He’s asked you to be his best man, so I he must consider you _his_ best friend.”

 “Yes. So he said. But. What do you say about that? What on earth do I tell _other people_ about that?”

“Well… why he is, I suppose. What makes him a good man, and a good friend?” Greg squeezed Sherlock’s shoulder encouragingly.

Sherlock was lost in pensive thought.

_He shot a serial killer dead to save my life within days of us first meeting. When a lunatic wrapped him in Semtex and turned him into a bomb, he clung to the lunatic and told me to run and save myself. He forgave me when I turned on him out of fear at Baskerville. He forgave me for treating him like an experiment. He forgave me for staging a suicide and making him witness it. He saved us from Moran’s bomb. He forgave me all my sins. When I was bleeding to death in a stairwell in Minsk, he was the reason I made myself live. He saved me even when he didn’t know he was saving me._

How could he possible tell other people these truths? He might have been able to ask his MI6 friend, who would have understood the things that he doubted Lestrade could, but that was not an option.

But perhaps there were other truths there that he could share.

_He saved Bairnsdale when I was stuck on trying to find the killer. He even saved his sister when he was nine years old and she’d metaphorically set their father on fire. He saves people. He’s always saving people. I solve crimes. John saves lives. That’s by far the harder thing._

“Or…”

Sherlock looked to Greg, whose expression was sympathetic but at a loss. “You could just tell a funny story.”

“I’ve noticed that other people don’t laugh at the things that John and I think are funny. Well. Except for Mary. She generally finds this stuff hilarious.”

“You like her then? Even though she…?”

“She what?”

“Never mind.”

“I like her immensely. She’s he first woman he’s ever been with whom I thought worthy of him.”

_It was a relief, really. John and Mary, married. Together. Right that they had each other, even if he..._

“Well. Say that then.”

Sherlock frowned. He made a note. Stared at it. “Short speech.”

“Might be for the best.”

"Yes. I expect so."

*


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unsolved case, a stag do and secrets revealed on the stairs.

Three nights before the wedding, a client brought the case of the Mayfly Man to their attention. Sherlock called John, who met him at one of the flats the apparent ghost had been using for his one night stands. The whole thing was inconclusive, and the nurse who’d called them in kept calling John by his full name, despite John’s scowl. There wasn’t enough time to examine the case or the potential data from the _I Dated a Ghost_ website before the next pre-wedding event.

Mary had a lavish afternoon tea out with her head bridesmaid, Janine, and some close friends while John, with rather more trepidation, went to the stag do that Sherlock had organised.

He needn’t have been concerned. The stag night was always planned as a two-part affair. Part one, dull but obligatory, was a few hours at the pub with John and his other friends. Stamford. Lestrade. Bill Murray. Molly. All right, so perhaps Molly was a miscalculation, but she had shown up, game and nervy but determined, and Greg kept looking at her surreptitiously.

Molly noticed. Of course she did. She was excellent at ignoring Greg’s interest though. In the kindest way possible, she was quelling.

Sherlock knew that he was required to do some _quelling_ of his own. He’d learned to be kinder about it too, but he was sympathetic. He understood. You love you who love. Things were how they were. And it could be all right, given time. In the absence of reciprocation, you could rejoice in friendship and value loving (if not being in love) and be glad that the object of love (of the _in loveness_ ) was happy.

Romance was not Sherlock’s area, anyway. Expressions of desire even further outside the Sherlock's area/relationships Venn diagram.

_I am myself, still._

Sherlock had planned to pace himself, but by the end of the evening he’d unwisely downed a few shots. John had gone well past his usual two drinks, and now he was mellow and inclined to be physical – hugging his friends, leaning on them, giggling at the stories Bill was telling about John’s army exploits.

At one stage, John held Molly’s hand and told her in an intense whisper while gazing straight into her eyes, “Thank you for helping him, thank you. Thank you. Did I thank you before? Thank you. Sherlock lives. John Watson lives! I’ll drink to that! Here’s to Molly! Here’s to Sherlock! Here’s to Mary! I love Mary. _I loooove her._ I love my Mary and her swishy coat and she’s so smart. Funny. Sassy.” (There followed a poorly coordinated attempt at a sassy click-click-click). “I _like_ that in a person. She’s the best person. She and Sherlock are the best person. S. Persons. People.”

Greg had sneakily hired a strip-a-gram for the event, but Teri, the happy-wedding-wishing sexy-army-uniform stripper styled Corporal Punishment, turned out to be a pretty young man named Terry. John howled with laughter and shimmy-danced back at all those oiled, undulating muscles before declaring Terry was too slippery. That debacle ended with Molly tucking a twenty pound note down Terry’s camouflage-pattern-in-red G-string, blushing a matching shade of cherry, Greg slapping Terry on the bum and then apologising, and Terry snogging Bill Murray in the alley outside the pub.

Then Sherlock nearly started a brawl by accusing a patron of sleeping with his best mate’s sister, then enumerating the clues. Oblivious of the danger of a punch to the face, he peered at the enraged men, tapped one on the chest. Said nothing.

“He’s … he’s… he’s clueing. For looks,” John explained.

“He’s asking for a broken nose,” observed Greg.

John immediately scowled thunderously at the men, tugged Sherlock out of the way and stood – several inches below both men’s considerable and muscular height – and bared his teeth, his whole body bristling with the potential mayhem he would unleash if they tried to start anything.

Behind him, Greg flashed his badge and the simmering brawl was postponed. The men left, arguing.

“Not sister,” Sherlock muttered afterwards, “His _wife_.”

“Never mind,” John thumped Sherlock encouragingly on the shoulder.

Sherlock’s face was thinky for a moment and then he declared, “His wife _and_ his sister!”

Another round of drinks got everyone in a more chill mood again, and then Molly called it quits and the rest soon followed.

John hugged everybody good night. At least twice. Instead of hugging Sherlock a second time, he simply leaned on him.

“Home,” said John.

“Home,” Sherlock agreed, propping John up.

John was merrily drunk, but not so buzzed he didn’t recognise what Sherlock was doing by the third odd detour. “We’re visiting all our old crime scenes,” he said, grinning.

“Yes.”

“The good ol’ days!”

“Yes. The good ol’ days.”

“Good new days, too. Are we going to St James’s? I stopped a bomb!”

“Yes you did.”

“Not such an idiot then, was I?”

“Much less of an idiot, John.” Sherlock considered his phrasing.  “Not an idiot.”

“No?”

“No.”

John grinned exactly like an idiot, bumped hard against Sherlock’s shoulder and knocked Sherlock into a wall.

“Oops.” John straightened him up again – Sherlock was wobblier than expected – and they leaned on each other all the way to Baker Street.

Eleven-thirty. Sherlock took three tries and still failed to insert the key in the door. John took it from him and with his tongue sticking out between his teeth, got the key in the lock first try, then held his hands up in triumph as though he'd completed a ten-point sweep of the judges in an Olympic gymnast routine. 

"Bullseye!"

"You," said Sherlock somehow managing to slur the ‘y’, "Are a crack shot." The T was sharp with the effort he made to pronounce it. 

They tried to ascend the stairs simultaneously. It was not a success. A few steps up and knees just folded like wet noodles and John and Sherlock simply followed their example, until they were both stretched on the stairs, not noticing how uncomfortable it was.

“Stairs,” said John woozily. “Fuck ‘em.”

“Fuck ‘em,” agreed Sherlock.

For a moment they rested, side by side, content in their shared dislike of the stairs.

“I have an internash’nal reputation!” Sherlock suddenly declared, feeling the need to match John’s targeting prowess with a boast of his own. “For crime. _No!_ For _solving_ crime! Internash’nal! Do _you_ have an internash’nal reputation?!”

“Yup!” declared John right back, “On three continents!” Then he cackled.

“Don’ understand.”

“With the laaaaaydiiiieeeees,” John carolled at him.

“Ah. I do not have a reputash’n with the laaayyyddiiies.”

“And three men.”

John giggled harder. The giggle turned into a filthy filthy chuckle. _Hur hur hur_. Then he pressed his finger against his own lips. “Ssssh. Sssh. Ssssh.”

“Noooo,” Sherlock protested.

John held up a finger. "One in school. On my rugby team.” A second finger. “Two: Med school. He was hot.” A third. “Three. Army. ‘Gainst the rules. Sshhhh.”

“But you're not gay.”

“Nope. Not gay. Kinsey.” The name was whispered as John nodded furiously. “Ssssh.

“You’re a one on the Kinsey,” said Sherlock, but it inflected up at the end. A question.

John’s three fingers folded down, and then he waggled one finger, two, and his face was wreathed in the naughtiest smile as he bent a third finger half way up and kind of whooshed it, proud-shy, in the air. 

“Ssshh,” he added, “Trouble trouble trouble.” The giggling faded abruptly to earnest dread. “So much trouble. So much trouble. Bad bad bad.”

John turned his head to look at Sherlock, his expression soft-serious, sweet-scared. “Don’t tell.”

“Promise.” Sherlock made a wobbly cross-my-heart at him. “Tell you a secret too.”

“Hmm?”

“I'm not gay either.”

John’s eyebrows were so surprised they turned his forehead into a corrugated landscape. Shrlock reached over to smooth it out with his thumb. “Mary said I was, but I'm not. I'm. I dunno. Whatever I am.  Gay _ish_. I don't do The Sex. Nope.”

“’Sokay,” said John kindly, “I don’ mind. I still love you.”

“Really?”

“Really. Love you. You don’t have to do the sex.”

“Sounds like you do the sex enough for both of us.”

“Yup.”

Sherlock turned his head to regard John solemnly. "You love Mary."

John's merriment sobered to a fond bleariness. "I love her so much. She completely changed my life. Turned me right around after you… after you…” He screwed the heel of his hand into one eye and then spoke more brightly. “You too. Changed my life. Twice. Two times. Twooooo. So glad you came back. I love you both. My two best friends. Love you both so much."

The revelation seemed to make him melancholy again. “So much. Both of you,” he said, clamping a hand around Sherlock’s wrist. “Best best best best…” He became cheerier with the chant.

“ _Would you boys both be quiet and get off my stairs it is nearly midnight and I do not want to hear about your sex lives_!”

“ _ **HUDDERS**_!” bellowed Sherlock affectionately.

She swore at them.

Sherlock lurched to his feet, dragging John up after him because John still had hold of his wrist. They made a second, more successful attempt at the stairs.

In the old sitting room, John poured scotch and insisted they play Celebrity Heads. He had to explain the rules three times. Then he kicked off his shoes and he sat with his best friend, being ridiculous and laughing while Sherlock Holmes mistook all of John’s clues about Sherlock as being about John.

Finally, Sherlock confessed he didn’t even know who Madonna was, though he was fully prepared to agree that John was a pretty lady, and while they were giggling about how Sherlock didn’t know how to play this stupid party game, Sherlock fell asleep.

John continued teasing Sherlock for five minutes after, not realising. Then he did and with exaggerated care, he took the blanket from his old armchair and spread it haphazardly over Sherlock’s snoring form. Then he nearly fell in Sherlock’s lap as he leaned over to kiss Sherlock’s forehead.

“Silly bugger,” John told him affectionately, and Sherlock snored in John’s face, and John went to kiss Sherlock’s forehead again and just banged his nose on a frontal bone.

Then he tottered off, dragging the blanket away with him again, curled up on the sofa.

Mary let herself in close to midnight. She roused John and sent him downstairs to get in the taxi while she took the blanket and tucked it around Sherlock. Kissed his forehead. Kissed his temple.

Then she left the flat, got into the cab with John and let him sleep until they reached their own apartment.

“Come on, love,” she murmured at him.

"Sherlock thinks I'm clever," he told her suddenly, "He thought he was me but it was him and he said I was clever."

Mary, figuring she'd never unravel that one, steered him towards the bedroom.

"I love him," John said, right out there, "And I love you." He was sitting on the edge of the bed.

Mary regarded him solemnly. "John. Are you in love with Sherlock?" Not accusing. Just asking.

"No. Nnnnnnnnno. He doesn't love like that."

"I think he does. I think he loves exactly like that."

"Nooooooo."

"John. Do you. Do you want to. We don't have to get married. We can stop this right now."

"But I love you. I want to marry you."

"Are you sure?"

"I’d have… vanished without you. Disappeared. Like a ghost. You saved me. When he was dead you saved me."

"That's not enough to marry me, John. I'm sorry. I know we shouldn't be having this conversation while you're drunk. But please. I don't know what to do."

He stared at her. He answered.  "I love you too. And him. But he doesn't. He doesn't. Not his area. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Sssh, sweetheart. It's okay. I know you love him. I didn't realise... you were in love with him. I should have seen it. I'm sorry too."

"I love you too."

"I know."

"Marry me. Please marry me, Mary."

"We'll talk in the morning."

"Don't leave me. Not you too."

"I won't. Sssh, now."

"I can't help it. Loving him. I can't help it. But it's not... like that.  With him."

"I know, love. It's okay. I love him too, and I can't help it either."

Mary put John to bed and stayed up several more hours, gazing out of the window at the cold, cold stars.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confessions. Wedding nerves. A phone call and a fight about the east wind. Another secret confessed. And one more deduction than expected.

John and Mary did not talk in the morning. John was hungover. John said he couldn’t recall anything last night after leaving the pub ( _liar_ ). John had to run because he was late for a final fitting ( _coward and liar_ ).

But John Watson, while he might be a master of self-deception, was not a natural liar, nor a natural coward.

He returned to his and Mary’s apartment in the later afternoon, less pale, but grim-faced.

Mary tried to read all the thoughts in the expressive lines of his face. _Unhappy. Guilty. Afraid. Determined._

“Mary,” John said, standing inside the front door, closed on the intrusions of the world. “We. That is. I. have to tell you something.”

“You went to Ella,” Mary said, staving off the awful moment. The realisation helped a little, but her lungs, her throat, the centre of her brain, the four chambers of her heart, were still stained ash-black with dread.

“Yes.”

Too heavy for utterance, ash-black words lurked in the back of her mouth. Mary waited.

“Mary.” A halting beginning.

She swallowed. Blue eyes bright.

“Do you want to sit down?” he offered.

With great effort, she shook her too heavy head.

“You might…”

“Are you leaving me?” Sound burst out. Ash and lava. Volcano hot.

“No. No, Mary. No. I’m not. I don’t want that. I. But… It’s not my choice. Whether to leave.”

Mary had no idea whose choice it was then. Unless it were Sherlock’s.

John blew out a hard puff of air and gathered calm to himself. The bravest man she knew, thought Mary. Or the second bravest. One or the other.

“This is a prepared speech, Mary,” John said carefully, “I’ve weighed these words carefully. If you can… let me finish before you speak. Let me get it all out. If you can.”

A nod.

“Right. Right. So. This is what it comes down to,” John said, steady, firm, standing straight-backed and chin up, a soldier under court-martial, perhaps. “What I said last night is true. All of it. I love you. I don’t blame you if you don’t believe it, but that’s the first thing I need you to know. I love you, Mary. I want to marry you. I want to live with you and grow old with you. I want that.”

Mary could read no lie in that at all, and she might have had hope, except for the other thing hovering unsaid. _But._

And here it came.

“But the other thing is true too. I love Sherlock. Sorry.” He shook his head slightly. “Be unequivocal, Ella said, and that’s not.  I should say that I am in love with Sherlock. It’s possible he feels the same, but that doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” Mary said. _Words of stone and ash._

He didn’t admonish her for the interruption, though the grimness faded to reveal an expression more lost than determined.

“It does and doesn’t. He made it clear that’s not the kind of love he wants from me. And that’s okay.” Less lost now. Determined, and accepting too. As though he’d found a kind of peace in what came next. “That’s okay if he doesn’t want that. That doesn’t have to be the kind of love we have. It’s more than brothers, it’s more than brothers-in-arms. I don’t know what it is, really. It just… is. It won’t go away, but it doesn’t need to be more than it is. Do you understand?”

Mary thought she might. “Yes.”  Then, “John.”

“I need to finish, Mary. Please? Is it okay if I finish, and then… you can say whatever you need to say? Is that all right?”

“Yes, John. That’s all right.”

“Right. Because. I love you too. I mean that. Every word. I love you so much. I don’t know if it’s meant to be possible, that I can love two people this much. But I do. And I can’t imagine my life without you, any more than I can imagine it without Sherlock. So. I want you to know, that if you can… forgive me. Understand this feeling I have for Sherlock. If you can accept that it’s not _more_ than what I feel for you. If you can, Mary. Please. I still want to marry you tomorrow. I want to be your husband. I want to love, honour, cherish. All those things. Sherlock will always be in my life, and I will always love him, but I will always love you too.  You’re not my second choice. I’m not _settling._ You’re Mary Morstan. You’re brilliant and brave. You’re kind and honest. Funny. Beautiful. You make my life better than it was. You make _me_ better than I was. I want you in my life. I want to marry you. If you. Still have me.”

He took a deep breath; exhaled slowly. Blue eyes bright, bright, bright.

“That’s the truth of what it is. I’ve accepted it now. I’ll accept whatever you decide, too. But the choice is yours.”

And he stood at attention and waited.

Mary blinked. The brightness in her eyes gathered and trickled.

“Ella,” she said, “Is a lot better than you told me she was.”

He didn’t laugh. He nodded. “She’s. Very good. She’s seen me. Through a lot of this. Even when I sat for an hour and couldn’t speak week after week when Sherlock was dead. When I sat for an hour a session and told her about this amazing woman I’d met. When Sherlock came home and I didn’t understand how I could be so happy and so angry at the same time. She. Is very good.”

“Thank you John,” said Mary, “For being so honest with me.”

“Least you deserve.”

She wondered if he remembered her last words to him last night. She didn’t know if she wished he did. “John, I understand. About loving Sherlock but that you don’t need it to be more. I understand that.”

John’s reply was a slow, shaky exhale.

Mary picked her words carefully.

“I fell in love with you that day at Postman’s Park. I have been in love with you every minute of every day since. And I saw how you loved Sherlock, and how he loved you. Whatever kind of love it was. I didn’t think ‘in love’ maybe, but I knew from the moment I met him that it was deep. It was for always. I accepted that from the start. And I loved him for loving you. I love him, too, John.”

Would he understand what she meant? Would it matter?

“John, I don’t want to grow old without you. And where you are, there’s Sherlock. And that’s _right_. He _should_ be. Not just because you love him, but because _we_ love him.”

John’s left hand was trembling, she could see. Maybe she wasn’t being clear enough.

“My choice, John, is you. And choosing you includes choosing Sherlock, and I do that. Love is so many things. And we can make this work.”

The soldier’s stance dissolved, and he stepped towards her, reaching for her, pulling her into a desperate embrace as he kissed her and thanked her, and told her how much he loved her.

They were both crying, and Mary clung to him. Her happiness was here, with John, and with Sherlock. For however long she could have it. Whatever came next, she’d be ready for it, as long as she could have this now.

*

The couple and their entourages, arriving separately, reached the church in plenty of time. They each had a room for dressing, preparing, panicking in. Mary swore to Janine she wasn’t panicking but after trouble with her stomach and the wine, she demolished half the plate of canapes that was meant to substitute for breakfast. Janine teased her about comfort eating. Mary, with three tiny pancakes topped with cream cheese and salmon stuffed in her mouth at once, pulled a face, swallowed and said, “For God’s sake go find me a sandwich.”

“Go easy or you’ll pop the stitches on that dress and I’ll have to sew you back in.” Janine retreated from the tongue Mary poked out at her and darted down the corridor and out of the church only to encounter Sherlock loitering by the back door.

“Give us a drag of your fag, Sherl,” she begged.

He started guiltily from where he leaned on the wall, then he offered his cigarette to her. She took a luxurious inhale and blew out a series of smoke rings.

“Fecking heaven. Where can I get a sandwich for our girl? She’s famished, she says. She might just throw it up again, but it’s her special day, she can scoff sandwiches and puke all day if she wants.”

Sherlock arched an eyebrow at her.

“Don’t give me that,” Janine said, passing the cigarette back to him, “You can’t tell me you haven’t spent the morning telling Mister in there that everything’s fine and he doesn’t have to look up the timetables for the next express to the continent.”

“Not a bit of it,” Sherlock said haughtily, “And nor has Mary.”

“Well, no, she isn’t planning on doing a runner. But her nerves are every which way. Even the little snifter of champagne wasn’t doing its job. Pulled a face like a cat’s arse when she tried it. Maybe it’s off.”

Sherlock raised the hand he’d kept at his side, revealing half a glass of the sparkling. “It’s perfectly acceptable.”

“Hark at you. Here.” She took it off him, sipped. “That’s an award winning wine, that is. It’s nerves. So. Sandwich?”

“Do I look like I carry emergency sandwiches secreted about my person?”

“Emergency fags is the extent of it, then?”

“Afraid so.”

“Has Mister eaten his canapes?”

“No. I did.”

“Ah, see, he is nervous. I’ve seen him eating like he thinks the bell’s going to ring and he won’t get to finish.”

“Army habit,” said Sherlock, “And hospital internship.”

“That explains it then. Oh well, better get back to Mary with the bad news.”

“Wait.” Sherlock gave her the cigarette again – Janine took another long drag – reached into his pocket and handed her a Snickers bar.

Janine grinned impishly, traded cigarette for chocolate, and took the spoils back in for Mary.

*

Sherlock ground his heel into the stub of the cigarette and considered going back to John. But John had made it very clear that he wanted a few minutes alone to collect himself. With shouting.

Another five minutes, then he’d go back.

Idly, Sherlock pulled out the phone and did something almost unheard of.

He called Mycroft.

Mycroft was puffing a bit. He’d been exercising again. Usually that was a terrific opportunity for needling, but Sherlock wasn’t really in the mood.

“If you’re calling about your handler again, forget it,” were Mycroft’s opening words. “You've corrupted my staff quite enough.  Once this field mission is over, a redundancy package will ensure it’s the last I see of that troublemaker. Generous, considering the difficulty we were put to.”

Sherlock could have argued terminology. He could have asked for Mycroft to pass along a message. Both options gave Mycroft too much power. Sherlock honestly couldn’t imagine what the message would be anyway. _I miss you. Come back. Let’s do dinner_. Ridiculous. Sherlock pretended instead that he’d called to see why Mycroft wasn’t at the church.

“I know they sent you an invitation.”

“They hardly expected me to accept it,” said Mycroft. “I’m surprised _you_ decided to have anything to do with it. One’s _friends_ acquiring wives. That tends to resolve itself in unpleasant abandonment.”

“You’re as bad as Mrs Hudson.”

“What have I always told you? Don’t get involved, Sherlock. It will be Redbeard and Victor all over again.”

“It’s nothing like that. I’m not a child.”

“Everyone leaves, Sherlock. You decided that when you were five. All lives end, all hearts are broken…”

Sherlock’s patience snapped. Once he had believed that, but he’d changed ( _I am myself, still, but yes… yes. I’ve changed_ ).

“No. That’s what you told me when I was five. Because of Eurus. You turned her into a ghost story. The east wind. To frighten little children into obedience. Well, I’m not little any more…”

“And you’ve never been obedient.”

“No. And I refuse to continue to let our sister be the ghost at every feast.”

Frostbitten silence. Sherlock pretended not to hear the chasm of grief behind it.

“I’m not Eurus,” he carried on. “Mary and John are not Eurus either. I’m not the one who is developmentally arrested. Let her go.”

“Thank you, Sherlock. I will of course listen to your sound psychological counsel on the day you can bring yourself to tell John Watson you’re in love with him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Don’t be such a coward.”

“Go to hell.”

“Oh Sherlock, trust me. I got here well ahead of the pack.”

*

In the bride’s antechamber, Mary was pacing so fast she almost broke into a run.

 “Settle yourself,” said Janine, “You’re going to go off like a firework if you don’t stop pacing.”

Mary continued to pace.

“I know you’re not worried about John. Are you worried about your Da?”

“No. You know I’m not. You know where he is.”

“I know, true, but that doesn’t mean you’re not worried, hen.”

“There’s nothing to worry about.”

“If you say so, Mary. And don’t worry. John’s here. And that tall drink of water he’s got for a best man. We had a little chat before he gave me his emergency Snickers.”

Mary wheeled to the door, peeked out.

Sherlock was at the side door to the church. She started out towards him, but he was on the phone, back to her. His shoulders, spine, neck, radiated tension.

“I’ll be right back. I just have to… tell John something.”

Mary gathered her gown up in her hand and she dashed across the hall to the room where John was waiting.

*

“Mary!”

“John, I…”

“Isn’t this meant to be bad luck? Seeing you in the dress before the wedding? I’m sure it’s meant to be bad luck.” He had turned his back to her, waving his hands around as though that would ward her off. Then he stilled. “Unless… you’ve… changed your mind?”

“God, no! No, not that. It’s just… I think. John, I think before we get married. I need to. To tell you something.”

He had turned back to her and was blinking owlishly. He was calm and still again. A soldier again. Waiting for the worst again.

“John, I…”

Sherlock appeared at the door.

“Isn’t this a significant break with all that ludicrous wedding protocol?” Sherlock asked coolly, “Some nonsense about the groom not seeing the bride in her gown before the wedding? Inane, I know, but John’s a romantic, he likes that sort of thing.”

“Go outside, Sherlock, I need to tell John…”

Janine joined the melee, brandishing Mary’s phone. “There you are! Don’t you know it’s bad luck to see the groom before you get to the altar?”

“That’s…”

“Phone call for you. Says it’s your Da.”

Mary blanched. “Tell him…”

“He made me swear to get you in person.”

Mary’s lips compressed in a scowl. “I’ll be right back. Stay right here.” That with a finger-jab towards John, then she strode out, taking the phone from Janine and disappearing into the churchyard. Janine followed at what she considered a safe distance.

“Her father?” Sherlock asked John.

“Jewel thief,” said John, relieved to be distracted from the weight of whatever Mary meant to tell him. “He’s sort of how we met. He disappeared when she was a young teenager to commit a spectacular heist in India. He felt guilty enough about abandoning her that he later sent her a gemstone every birthday for nine years. Then nothing for more than a decade until, out of the blue, three rubies. We think he was in prison in the intervening time. We tracked him down, but he refused to see her. He said the rubies were the end of it. She hasn’t spoken to him since.”

“Strange, that he’s calling.”

“I suppose he read the notice in the paper.”

“I suppose he did.”

Mary returned sombre. “He’s not coming,” she said.

“Was he supposed to?” John asked, puzzled.

“That was the thing I wanted to tell you. He said he might come, but not to tell you anything. But he’s decided not to. He says he’s on his way to Ireland.”

“Hey.” John held her hand, pulled her into a hug. “Hey, it’s okay.”

“It’s probably for the best,” she said, voice thick.

“Harry hasn’t come either.” John brushed his fingers against her cheek. Then he looked at Sherlock. “But we’ve got Sherlock, and each other, and that’s all the family we need.”

“And the baby,” said Sherlock.

“What?”

“And the… oh.”

“Oh?” Mary stood tall. “What do you mean ‘oh’?”

“Aaah. One more deduction than I was expecting,” Sherlock said. “Janine was telling me that you were ill earlier, but your appetite had increased. She also said you reacted badly to the wine. You didn’t drink at your hen’s night either – Mrs Hudson confirmed you collected John on the night of the stag party and were unaffected by alcohol. A few glasses of champagne would be considered reasonable at your hen’s night, but you didn’t. You told her that it tasted strange. When you got to the church, you were ill. Janine thought it was nerves. Increased appetite, an alteration in your taste perception, morning sickness. I could be wrong, of course…”

“When are you ever wrong?”

“Quite often as it happens, but don’t tell anyone.”

John was staring at Mary. Then at Sherlock. Then at Mary. Then down at Mary’s belly, where she had placed her hand in a wondering sprawl.

He placed his hand over hers. “Mary.”

“Well,” said Mary, breathless. “I guess…”

They both looked at Sherlock, grinning giddily. They drew an answering grin from Sherlock.

“Time to get married,” said Sherlock firmly. “And make a family.”

“And baby makes four,” said Mary, one hand holding John’s, the other, Sherlock’s. “Let’s go get hitched.”

*


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a wedding and a murder; there is dancing and a ghost at the feast; there is an unexpected sort-of bridal waltz. And some little lies.

Despite everything, the wedding ceremony was lovely. Everyone said so later.

John Watson stood at the altar, bouncing on his feet, lacking his habitual measured calm. He kept grinning to himself, and then the grin would go wobbly as though panic lurked at the edges of his joy.

Then Sherlock leaned over and murmured in his ear. The words were inaudible but the reassuring tone of the deep voice was unmistakable. John gave his friend an uncertain look; Sherlock smiled in a way that those who knew him could only describe as improbably sheepish, and he said, “I’d hardly say so if I didn’t know it to be true.”

John relaxed completely, then. He gripped Sherlock by the shoulder and then slid that into a firm sideways hug and a murmured, “Thank you.”

When Mary appeared at the other end of the aisle, John beamed at her. Mary, who had seemed to the congregation to be on the verge of panic herself took one look at her husband-to-be’s confidant, joyful face and responded in kind.

All through the vows, John and Mary kept grinning at each other like they had a gleeful secret. It was strangely adorable, how they were practically giddy. Anyone would think they hadn’t already lived together for most of a year.

Outside the church soon after, when the photographer moved Sherlock out of the picture, the happy couple managed without the best man for all of ten minutes before they fetched him back again. Later, he would be there in almost every picture. A little formal at times, but revealed time and again, to be looking at them with warm affection, a kind of pride and protectiveness in his expression. And the way they looked at him too.

It was all there, whatever it was.

Even the scarred soldier, Major Sholto – John’s old commanding officer – took his place in a few group photos before muttering to John that his back was twinging fiercely from all the unaccustomed standing.

The wedding feast… well, that was a shame, the guests said later. It had been lovely too, until it wasn’t. The telegrams caused a laugh, except for that odd one from someone named Cam. Sherlock’s speech – in spite of some wagers being made to the contrary – was perfect. Short but heartfelt, it was a surprisingly honest blank verse anthem to his remarkable and loyal friend, who saved lives, who had saved him, who was the best and wisest man he’d ever known – here today marrying the woman who was as worthy of John as John was of her.

Then as Sherlock raised the glass for a toast, he became distracted with unbidden surges of observation. Suddenly, murder was in the air, and then it wasn’t lovely any more.

Unless of course you were Sherlock Holmes, who enjoyed a good murder. And of course, newly married John and Mary Watson, who liked a bit of an adventure, even on their wedding day.

 _Vatican Cameos_ was declared in the middle of the waffling extended speech, prompting John to explain in a tight voice to Mary: _someone is going to die._ Dressed all in champagne coloured silk and amid expensive floral arrangements, the game was _on!_

Sherlock apparently rambled, dropped a note, and Major Sholto made a dignified exit while Lestrade arranged the lockdown of the reception centre. Sherlock gave little Archie the kind of respectful attention that Molly’s new boyfriend would never earn.

It wasn’t the time or place really, but Sherlock had hardly been the one to choose either. All he could do was choose to act on the sudden, certain knowledge that someone was trying to murder James Sholto.

Instead of being furious, Mary raced in John and Sherlock’s wake to tell them James Sholto’s room number, and to follow them there.

Much shouting in the corridor led to accusations of drama queen, and James Sholto refusing to come out, no matter how imminent his death seemed.

Challenged to solve it, _solve it now Sherlock!_ , Sherlock felt his brain speed up and moments of things heard and seen and observed cascaded down.

_John holding up three fingers. Three continents Watson. Three on the Kinsey scale. One: at school. Two: Med school. Three. Army. ‘Gainst the rules. Sshhhh._

Number three was behind the locked door. _I can’t let James Sholto die. Not today._

More memories, connections, tumbling through his mind.

_Bainbridge. The invisible man murderer. Mayfly man. The slender skewer._

_Oh. Oh. **OH.**_

Sherlock banged on the door. “Major Sholto, the killer isn’t coming for you. The deed’s already been done. When your back hurt after the photographs. That’s when he did it. A superfine stiletto blade through your belt. If you take off your uniform, the belt will stop acting as a pressure bandage. You’ll bleed to death. Let John in to help you now!”

Sherlock’s triumph sang in his veins. Today, he won. Today, he did not let John Watson down.

 “When so many want you dead, it hardly seems good manners to argue.”

This was not the response Sherlock had expected.

Nor had John. _“_ Whatever you’re doing in there, James, _stop it, right now_. I will kick this door down.”

Sherlock wouldn’t tolerate the pain under the anger in John’s voice. He would not.

“I really wouldn’t,” James called back through the closed door. “I have a gun in my hand and a lifetime of unfortunate reflexes.”

“Sholto, don’t do this,” Sherlock warned him. His heart was beating hard, not quite panic, not quite, not quite. He couldn’t lose. This wasn’t for the love of the puzzle. This was for…

“Mr Holmes,” said the Major through the door, “You and I are similar, I think.

Sherlock, hand pressed to the door, pulse racing, said, “Yes, I think we are.”

“There’s a proper time to die, isn’t there? One should embrace it when it comes – like a soldier.”

“Perhaps,” Sherlock countered, firmly, “But there’s a time to fight, too. No matter how close we are to losing. There’s a time and a place. A reason. To fight. To survive.”

Through the thrumming of his heart, Sherlock heard the voice he missed, making sure he understood this fact.

_It’s easy to let yourself die if John Watson thinks you’re dead already. But if he is expecting you back, you won't let him down. You will not die while John Watson is expecting you home._

And Sherlock heard John’s voice too.

_Three. Army. ‘Gainst the rules. Sshhhh._

“You won’t do this,” Sherlock insisted, “Not at John’s _wedding_. We wouldn’t _do_ that, would we – you and me? We would never do that to John Watson.”

Silence. John moved to break the door down after all, but it opened, and there stood James Sholto, ramrod straight in his uniform, scarred and all but broken, who had made himself go into the world so that he could see John Watson being happy.

*

John stripped down to his bare chest to avoid spilling blood on his wedding clothes. He triaged James until the ambulance arrived. Sholto wouldn’t let him go to the hospital with him. “You’ve got a wedding to celebrate, and I don’t want to begin my friendship with your wife by dragging you away when you don’t need to come. The hospital will take good care of me. Visit tomorrow.”

John promised he and Mary would, then he washed the blood from his hands, allowed Sherlock to reposition the pins in his tie, and they returned to the disrupted reception. Greg Lestrade handed the culprit – the invisible killer, the Mayfly Man, the photographer Jonathan Small – over to another DI and decided to get good and drunk and see if he could dance with that tall, gorgeous Irish bridesmaid.

A small speech, a promise – his first and last vow, Sherlock said, to always protect Mary and John and whatever family they might have in the future. He managed to not give away the news, but he felt deeply aware of it. Mary and John and the baby.

Perhaps Mycroft and Mrs Hudson were right, after all. A baby would change everything. It was the end of an era.

When the DJ started up, Sherlock slowly put away his violin and the sheet music. He looked hopefully for Janine, but she had found a dance partner.

 _Always the bridesmaid_ , _never the bride,_ Mycroft’s voice lilted in his head.

 _Shut up Mycroft_ , Sherlock muttered at his own imagining.

He walked into the dark garden, beyond the dancing and the party and the joy, and wondered if anyone would even notice if his got his coat and just left. He should get his coat anyway. He’d left his cigarettes in the right pocket and he damn well needed a smoke.

Rustling in the shrubbery stilled his footsteps. He narrowed his eyes. Light glinted off a pair of eyes regarding him through the shadows. A woman cleared her throat.

She stepped out from the overhanging leaves and branches to glare at him sullenly.

“You pissing off early from the party? Who does that?”

“I’m just taking the air,” Sherlock said, dismantling her in a searching look.

Voice slurred slightly. _Drunk._ The smell of whisky and breath mints rolled out from her, her hair was damp at the fringes where she’d splashed water on her face. _She’s made an effort to clean up. High functioning alcoholic, most likely._ Short. Blonde. _Clearly knows it’s Mary and John’s wedding_. Some effort to dress nicely, but effort abandoned. Make-up smudged. _She’s been crying._

Familiar eyes, recognisable even in the shadows: same colour, same shape, finer brows and longer lashes, but the same habitual heavy lines under them – most of those made by suffering, though her suffering was different to John's.

“Harry Watson,” said Sherlock.

“Sherlock Holmes.” Her reply was tinged with sardonic humour and not entirely friendly.

Sherlock inclined his head in a graceful nod.

“You’re a supercilious prick.”

“So I’m told.”

Harry pulled her dark coat closer around her body. “How was it, then?”

“Oh, you know weddings. Overlong, over-sentimental. More frenemies and less family than you’d expect. A murder attempt.  So that made it less dull.”

“Don’t give me that,” said Harry with a rude snort, “I saw you looking at them when you lot came out of the church. You think they’re god’s bloody gift.”

“He was hoping you’d come, you know.”

“No he wasn’t. He invited me but he was hoping I wouldn’t.”

Sherlock had to concede this was true, but was feeling loathe to verbalise it. Where had this impulse to be kind come from?

“He knows I burn things down.”

“He told me. Nearly took the both of you with the house.”

Harry swayed in her surprise, and took hold of a branch to steady herself. “Did he? Didn’t think he told anybody about that. I was speaking meta- m-metaphoric-ickly.” She shook her head and swayed again. “A metaphor. But I burn actual things too. Did he tell you about the car? Nah, he didn’t, did he? I’m pretty sure he knows that was me.”

Sherlock stayed calm. Curious.  He wanted to know more. “He didn’t tell me about the car.”

“He went at mum again, that bastard, after we moved to the new place. Because of Johnnie.  Found him sitting with his little schoolmate Phelpsie, holding hands and talking. Just kids’ stuff. He laid into Johnnie, then he laid into me as a bad influence, and when mum made him stop, he laid into her. So I shoved dry leaves all in the driver’s side of his precious fucking Triumph and set fire to it. Pity he wasn’t in it at the time.”

“Any more fires I should know about?”

Harry grinned crazily at him. “Only the metaphorical ones. So far.” Then she became solemn. “Dad fucked off and mum took up the drinking and walloping. So it was all a bit wasted, really.” Another scary grin. “And now I’m carrying on the family tradition.”

Family traditions. Like the long-running grudges. Like the ghosts they cultivated, and the violence that haunted every member of the household.

Harry clutched onto a branch and leaves rustled around her head. For a moment she looked utterly lost.

“Is he happy?”  Harry was oddly plaintive now. Like it maybe mattered, but she couldn’t be sure, or remember why.

“Yes,” said Sherlock. John was, and so was Mary. (But was _he_? He remembered John on the stairs, holding his wrist. He remembered Mary. _You’re good for us too. We love you._ He thought of vanished friends. He thought of ghosts. He thought of the baby on the way.)

“Good,” Harry replied, “He should be. Especially after what that prick Brook did. What _you_ did. Dying like that.”

Sherlock was now officially over this awful conversation. “Fine. Yes. We’re all appalling. Any message you’d like me to pass on?”

“Is he dead, though? That bastard Moriarty? Is he really truly dead?”

Sherlock had frozen, arrested by the sudden horror that the name invoked.

“Yes,” he said firmly, “He blew his brains out in front of me. It left a decent sized hole in his head. He is very thoroughly dead.”

“Good. Bastard. I’d set him on fire, no question. Though…” Harry’s expression thoughtful, “He had some good ideas. Creepy ideas. They’d work, though.”

Sherlock did not at all care for the look of dreamy yet unholy speculation in her eyes.

“There you are!”

Harry shrank back into the shadows as Sherlock turned to see Mary, her white dress ghostlike in the moonlight, coming down the path towards him.

“You better not have been slinking away from our wedding.”

“I wanted a smoke,” he said.

“I can’t see a cigarette.”

“Turns out I left them in my coat. Inside.”

“Oh, I should have looked for that. You’d never abandon your baby.” Her expression was that perfect blend, as always, of sardonic teasing and real affection. She held her hand out. “Come back in. We have dancing to do.”

But then Mary was suddenly tense, suddenly aware of someone retreating from them through the garden. She stepped towards the sound.

“It’s Harry,” Sherlock said, holding her back with a hand to her elbow. “She’s drunk.”

“Oh.” Mary stopped.  “What did she want?”

“I think she just wanted to see if he was… happy.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That he is.”

“Should we… tell John she was here?”

“Yes.”

“It’ll only upset him for no purpose,” Mary said, frowning.

“White lies, Mary? And so soon in the marriage?”

“That’s rich coming from the man who organised a fake suicide without telling his best friend.”

The air between them crackled for a moment, full of suggestions of unforgiven things. Then Mary was shaking her head.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. That was mean. I didn’t mean that. All I mean is… some little lies are kinder, aren’t they? When the truth is only going to hurt someone you love without anything to show for it. How will it help him to know she showed up drunk and then pissed off again without even saying hello?”

“Perhaps it would make a difference to him to know she bothered at all. And to know she didn’t stay because she didn’t want to, as she put it, set anything on fire.”

Mary sighed. “Yes. You’re right.  But can I tell him tomorrow? He doesn’t need to know right now.”

Sherlock nodded assent. Then Mary took firm hold of his wrist and looked at him with her blue eyes full of regret.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. About… what happened. I can’t imagine the strain you were under, to make that choice. I know you love him. You wouldn’t hurt him for no reason. I know you didn’t mean to leave him hurting. That was…  what did you call him this time? _Interfering Cow_. That was _his_ doing.”

The tension bled out of Sherlock’s stance. “I did my share. I made mistakes I don’t intend to repeat.”

“Then come back inside. Dance with me. Janine’s keen for another step round the floor with you. She says you’re very good. I didn’t know you could dance.”

They walked back to the pavilion, full of lights and music and people singing along with terrible 80s love ballads.

“I learned some routines for a case once…”

“Liar.”

“No really, someone was leaving vicious notes at the Royal Ballet…”

“Liar.”

“All right, so my parents forced Mycroft and me to take lessons. The great lump stood on me repeatedly to get out of it. I ended up learning to dance with my father.”

A monstrous waste of time since no-one at any of the school balls had been at all interested in dancing with him. A rejection that hurt in ways that the others hadn’t, because he’d loved dancing and had been looking forward to showing that like this, at least, he wasn’t strange.

“That’s better,” grinned Mary at him.

A wisp of _liar_ curled off Mary still. He’d noticed it ever since the phone call about her father, and in her unhappy reaction to Cam’s telegram. But that wisp was almost drowned out by the sincerity of other things: her love for John, foremost. And for him.

Back inside, Sherlock danced briefly with Mary. John arrived, a little tipsy. “You found him! Good. Now, come dance with me, wife!”

“With pleasure, husband!”

They whirled away. All these happy people dancing. Sherlock wanted to slink off again, but then Janine tapped him on the shoulder. “Come on then, Sherl,” she encouraged him, “Try to teach me a few more steps.”

He danced with her, and she spent most of it asking his opinion on other prospects, including that “silver fox of a copper who keeps making cow eyes at the lady dressed like a buttercup.”

“Oh, that. I’m not sure she’ll ever encourage him.” Molly’s unrequited heart was sadly drawn elsewhere, just as bereft of encouragement. “Dance with him, though. He’s… a good egg.”

“A good egg? Really? _That’s_ the phrase you’re going with?” She laughed warmly, teasingly, and thumped him on the arm as they danced. “Oh well. I’ll dance with your good egg at least once.”

A new song, partners changed, and suddenly Mary and John were at his side. Mary looked like she was trying not to laugh too hard. John looked a combination of vaguely offended, a little nervous and thoroughly stubborn.

“Dance with me,” John said to Sherlock.

The demand was so unexpected that Sherlock could only say “What?” in a dumbfounded voice.

“Dance with me. Greg doesn’t believe you taught me how to dance. I’m going to prove the bastard wrong.”

And a little wisp of _liar_ curled around John as he said it. And tangled in the wisps of truths.

_He wants to dance with me again. He is seeking an excuse. Mary suggested it, and John is relieved to have a reason. So that we can dance again. We all tell little lies. To ourselves as much as other people._

“It’s hardly traditional,” said Sherlock. This required a token resistance to give credence to the lie. He wanted to dance with John, too.

“We'll make our own traditions, sunshine,” Mary told him cheerfully, “Off you go. Show that doubting bobby what you’re made of.”

“I’m honestly flabbergasted that he ever solves a case,” said Sherlock, holding up his arms in the correct post. John slotted himself into place, nodded out the time and then pulled Sherlock out onto the dance floor.

John didn’t even bother to watch, to see if Greg was paying attention to this demonstration that he was wrong. His opinion didn’t matter at all.

Sherlock let John lead him around the floor, and some people cheered them, and some were wistful or surprised or curious, and Sherlock didn’t spare a moment for any of them.

John was looking at him with soft blue eyes, all affection, and Sherlock knew he was looking back with much the same expression on his face.

_I was the man who didn’t love, and now love – am **in love** – with three people. Excessive. I always am. I have changed, it seems, but apparently I really am still myself._

They laughed at the end of the dance, covering up other emotions. Mary swept in then, kissing Sherlock on the cheek, then John.

“My boys,” she declared with proprietorial fondness. She held John’s hand, and Sherlock’s, and gazed at them with teary joy. “My boys.”

 _I love them,_ Sherlock thought _, but it doesn’t have to be more than this. This is good. This works. I can have this and be only a little changed and still be myself. I don’t want anything else. Anything more._

It was, after all, only a little lie.


End file.
